Nothing
by Crescent Moon19
Summary: Just let me stay a month. That's what he had said to Jimmy. What if it really was only one month? What if Jess returned? The events from his departure to his return and then some.
1. Caller Unknown

**Nothing**_**  
**_--Crescent Moon19

Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't sue me, thank you very much.

Set immediately after Jess leaves for California and goes from there. First two lines are dialogue from "Here comes the son" episode 3.21 (when Rory first finds out that Jess is gone). Happy ending guaranteed! (Just not yet.)

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Rory's POV: 

"_Are you ok?"  
_"_Yeah."_

_Yeah, right. Of course I'm fine. My boyfriend, oh my god ex-boyfriend, skipped town to go to some place, where I have no idea, without telling me. Without even saying goodbye. And he _knows_ how much I hate people not saying goodbye. I skipped school to take a bus to New York to say goodbye. Why did he leave? Was being with me such a pain that he had to get away? No, I will not blame this on myself. This is all his fault. Every single crappy thing that's happened was his fault. The- the thing at Kyle's party, not being able to take me to prom, never calling, treating me like dirt, it was all his fault! And... I- I miss him. A lot. Not the angry Jess. The Jess who was willing to wear a tuxedo, to listen to horrible music, to put up with his classmates, all because I wanted to go to the Stars Hollow Prom. The Jess who looked up how far away Yale was on Yahoo and then refused to admit that he was being sweet. I wish he'd come back to me. _

Rory pauses, debating whether or not she should throw this away like the others. No, she thinks, I'll keep this so that years from now I can look back on this and laugh. She ignores the falseness of this thought and is spared from having to justify it to herself when her phone rings. She blinks, wondering who would call her at this hour. The caller ID doesn't help. It just says "Unknown." She refuses to acknowledge her heart, which has just jumped into her throat, as she reaches to pick up the phone.

"_Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? -pause- Jess?"_

Silence follows her questions, although she swears she hears a breath hitch when she says his name. Maybe it had been her own. She brings the phone slowly away from her ear, giving Unknown plenty of time to speak, before she finally hangs up. The numbers on her clock glare out at her, reminding her that her eyes have been open for much longer than 9 out of 10 doctors recommend. Idly, she wonders what the tenth doctor recommends while she prepares for bed. She goes to sleep, dreaming of ringing phones and sunny beaches and a hot dog stand.

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Review please! 


	2. 2 Inch Grass

**Nothing  
**--Crescent Moon19

Disclaimer: Don't own don't sue thank you.

_Italic _is Jess's thoughts  
**Bold **is counterargument to his thoughts--the thing that had possessed Rory (explained in the story)

Once again first line is from "Here comes the son," when Jess is arguing with Jimmy about staying in California.

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Jess's POV: 

_I have nothing._

Nothing at all. Not a mother who cares, not a father who stayed, not a high school diploma, and not her. Not her. I don't have her, and I never will. The first time was a fluke. I have no idea what possessed her to fall for me, but I had hoped that whatever it was would never leave. Now I'll never know if it did. Actually, it probably left as soon as I left. Maybe it's with me right now. Maybe it's floating behind my shoulder, mocking me.

**So what if you aren't graduating? There is such a thing as a GED.**

_Shut up, you don't know anything._

**So what if you aren't living with Luke anymore? You have enough money saved up from working for him and Wal-Mart. You could rent an apartment. If worst came to worst you could have checked into the Inn. It would have all been worth it.**

_SHUT UP!_

**How stupid could you be, leaving her behind? And don't tell me to shut up, you know it's true. **_**How**_** could you leave her behind?**

_I don't know. I don't know! I don't know anything. All I know is that California is a new start. A new place where no one knows who I am. Where I can start over again. At least I can be away from stupid Luke with his best for you and his future and the stupid town with its you're not good enough and its perfect 2 inch grass and..._

**And away from her. Away from her unwavering belief in you and her sparkling eyes and smile and her love of reading. Away from her. **

_Yeah. Away from her._

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More to come! (I know they're short, but I have about 5 chapters written out and I'm still going.) 

Thank you to **anonomous1624** and **CharliLee** for reviewing! And you other people--review please. I'm not posting this for my health (although I do enjoy writing it) : )


	3. Bright Red Coat

**Nothing**  
--Crescent Moon19

Disclaimer: DO, DS, TY [don't own don't sue thank you, only much shorter XP

Yes, I know it's unnaturally short. Probably the shortest chapter possible, but I really want to emphasize Rory's feelings. I'm making it up to you though by updating TWO chapters. And the next one actually has interaction with other people.

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Rory's POV: 

She hates this, all this pretending. Acting as if nothing had ever gone wrong, as if her entire world has not been shaken from its roots so much that it has flown away from her, with no signs of coming back. She wishes that she could go back to that one period of time after her ugly break-up with Dean and before things started to go bad with Jess. That one beautiful wonderful era of her life where the sun shone brightly and all was right and happy in her world. Back to the time when Jess was _her_ Jess, not the alien that has taken over and ruined everything. He ruined _everything_. She tries hard to ignore her possible role in The Deterioration. Maybe she should have seen through his anger, should have known that it wasn't her he was angry at but the world, life in general. Maybe instead of losing her nerve, she should have marched into that diner in her bright red coat and wheedled him into telling her what's wrong. Maybe she should have turned around and called his name when she felt him behind her. Maybe if she had, things would be different. Maybe if she had, things would be better. And her world would return.

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**Curley-Q** gets a thank you for reviewing.

Would those other readers like to review as well? Reviews with three sentences or more get tons and tons of thanks...


	4. Not Anymore

**Nothing**  
--Crescent Moon19

Disclaimer: DO, DS, TY

Hey look! Actual dialogue! Course I just realized that this is really short as well... Hm. Well I updated on the same day so... it counts as being longer.

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Jess was jolted out of his inner monologue by Jimmy, who handed him a hot dog on the house. He grunted his thanks, settling down to continue his argument with himself, but was rudely interrupted. 

"So Jess… why did you leave?" Jess found it interesting that he didn't ask why he _came_ but why he _left_. As if he had left something behind.

"Just wanted to."

God, why did he always use that same phrase over and over again? He was going to have to physically remove it from his vocabulary or else he would always be reminded of that one moment in time, his first (real) kiss with Rory.

"There's a girl isn't there?"

Jimmy was no fool. He had been watching Jess carefully earlier and now too. He knew the look on his face. It was the look, as cliché as it sounded, of heartbreak.

"No! No, there is no girl." Then, in a smaller voice, "Not anymore."

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Reviews make the world go round. (Well yes, love does too, but that's irrelevant.) 


	5. Oddly Colored Elephant

**Nothing**  
--Crescent Moon19

Disclaimer: Don't own don't sue thank you.

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_Back in Stars Hollow:_

"Rory? Are you here?"

"In here Mom."

She feels a brief something upon the realization that under any other circumstance, her mother would have yelled "Marco!" in a voice that would make dogs deaf. But then it is gone, chased out by the mind-numbing nothing she has forced into her brain to stop the flow of thoughts.

"Rory? What are you doing?" She leans against the doorway, regarding her daughter with a tilt of her head.

"Nothing." Lorelai feels panic begin to set in when she realizes that her daughter, the one with an outline, a thesis, supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion for everything has nothing to say about the nothing that she is apparently doing. She cautiously steps into the room with all the grace of someone awaiting an upcoming explosion of the emotional magnitude and sits next to her daughter on the bed.

"Nothing? At all? Not sitting, not couch potato-ing like the best of the has-beens of the last decade, not counting the holes in the ceiling, not… thinking…?" With panic comes nerves, and with nerves comes rambling.

"Nothing at all, Mom. Not anything, not something, not counting the different ways the construction company that made this house sucks at making hole-less ceilings, and definitely not thinking." She wishes that her mom would just leave her alone in her nothingness. She doesn't think she can withstand another round of warily skirting around the pink-and-yellow polka dotted elephant in the room, and she surely can't handle defending Jess while thinking that it's all her fault, _her_ fault.

"You wouldn't happen to be thinking nothing about a certain delin—James Dean wannabe that skipped town, would you?" Lorelai refrains from using the word "delinquent," knowing that it might set Rory off.

Rory is shocked at her mother for both pointing out the oddly colored elephant and being considerate enough to at least pretend to give Jess a chance. Even though it's her fault that he's gone. And suddenly, the explosion that Lorelai has been waiting for happens—Mount Rory erupts with enough distressed guilty ramble to clog up the air for decades.

"It's all my fault! Ok well fine maybe not _all_ my fault since he _is_ the one who got up and left and I certainly didn't make him do that it's not like I stood there and threatened to force read him The Fountainhead if he didn't leave but it's my fault because I _knew_ that he wasn't mad at _me_, I _knew_ that something was wrong, I _knew_ and I still didn't do anything as if I foolishly hoped that he would tell me of his own violation when I really haven't even given him a real reason to trust me with his deepest darkest secrets when I haven't even trusted him with _my_ deepest darkest secrets and—"

"Rory! Stop! Breathe!" For both their sanities, Lorelai interrupts her and forces her to stop. But once the dam is broken, nothing can stop Rory's emotions from flooding out, be it in the form of words or tears. Rory buries her head in her mother's lap and cries, cries while her mother strokes her hair softly, cries for all the had-beens and could-have-beens and for the lack of will-bes, as Lorelai stares off into space and thinks troubled thoughts.

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Guess who rocks? My reviewers do! **gilmorejunkie1230**, **Curley-Q**, **ArabellaKye**, and **Literati and naley forever** are my new favorite people. **gilmorejunkie1230** and **Literati and naley forever** get cookies for reviews that were longer than one sentence. 

Just to address some concerns:  
Yes, I know this is short. Unnaturally short in fact. I did it on purpose, because it showed emotion well without over-doing it too much. This chapter's my last pre-written chapter, so updates shall now become sporadic and unpredictable. On the bright side, since I'm moving out of the mind and into the human world, the chapters _should_ be longer. As soon as I get around to writing them, that is.

Review please?


	6. Where the Heart Is

Disclaimer: never owned it, never will.

A/N: I'm assuming that there's one month between Jess's departure and Rory's graduation. If the time has been specified in canon, please tell me?

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It's a month later, and already the sunshine is getting to him. Doesn't the damn sun ever go away for a rest, for a respite from all the crazy cheerfulness of a California beach? Then again, sun means tourists, which means people to buy these surprisingly good tasting hot dogs and a way to keep busy without giving anything deeper than the weather much thought. And he likes it that way.

But every day, when the mealtime rush dies down, Jess is left idle and alone with his thoughts. He contemplates calling her to explain everything, what with all the time he's had to think about his _feelings_. The first time he tried, he didn't get past the third digit. By now, he can hold out past the dialing, past the ringing of the phone, past her first hello. But he still can't bring himself to say anything to her. How can he explain to her all that is going on in his head? And through the phone no less? Everyone knows that he's a visual person, what with people being able to read more in the line of his shoulder and the tilt of his smirk than in his words. How can mere words express what he wants to say? This is the first time that his beloved books, his wonderful words, have let him down. He sure hopes it's the last.

Jimmy walks up. "It's been a month, Jess. Go back. If not for her, at least for Luke. See how he's been doing. Just—"

"No, it's too soon! I can't—in another month, maybe—"

"_No_. You've already wasted away enough time standing here staring off into space. Your stuff's all packed, your plane ticket's been bought and your flight leaves in 4 hours. Get going." He doesn't mention that it's a one-way ticket.

Jess doesn't know if he should be offended at how presumptuous Jimmy's being or grateful for the push off his ass that he's providing. Finally he decides that it doesn't matter. He's going home (where the heart is).

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A/N: Yeah so... it's been more than 8 months. Whoops? Story's starting to come to a conclusion, but not quite yet. Next chapter sort of started. Many, many thanks to **Curley-Q**, **Just A Girl of the Hollow x3**, **blonde-biatch**, and **musicormisery4105** for the reviews. (I'm excited that I've finally broken 10!)

Also, regarding the shortness. I'm doing it on purpose. Please tell me _why_ it needs to be longer, so I can understand, because right now, I honestly don't think it does. (I'm also glad to see some people agree with me—thanks!)

Review please?


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